1 Down, 364 More to Go

HOPEFULLY this is not the case. Actually, I'm am VERY pleased. I am referring to the "big" transition from a crib into a toddler bed. Yes, we started tackling this monster last night. Our approach? Try and try again to see what works. :)

In reality, Alexis did a great job last night. She ended up not taking a nap yesterday afternoon, although she did rest in her crib for that time. So we figured she was pretty tired anyway. We put her down a little after 7:30, which is her pretty normal bedtime. We thought that the best idea would be to take everything out of the room except for her bed and her favorite friends to sleep with - no toys, no curtains or other decorations (we waited to put anything else up), basically no distractions. We also thought that what we would do is put the gate up at the door so that she couldn't get out of the room, and in a while we'll transition to putting the gate at the top of the stairs and closing all the doors so she doesn't go downstairs or get into other places. That's how we decided to try things.

Well, Alexis was adorable. She got all excited earlier in the day when we were showing her the big girl bed, and before bed she simply crawled in under the covers and tucked mardvaark in with her and was saying night night. All signs were good! Then we left, and she got sad. And then really sad. And then tragically sad. Jason went to be with her and she just cried and cried and cried. I joined after a while, and then we left for probably about ten minutes, letting her calm herself down a little and then start crying again and continuing the cycle for a little while. Jason went up again for a shorter period of time but still trying to comfort her and let her know everything was fine but that she was a big girl and she had to stay in bed. Then the leaving, the crying and not crying again, and I went up for a very brief period of time. She needed a diaper change, so I gave her one, and I did the whole explanation, kiss and hug and goodnights and put her back to bed, and she cried some more, and then she started to calm down. I left about 8:15 and we said we wouldn't go back for a certain period of time because we're trying to encourage her to self-adjust (I guess that's how you could say it). Anyway, by 8:25 she was out, sleeping on the bottom half of her bed, but asleep in the right direction. I was pretty impressed.

And yes, at some point in the evening she got herself out of bed... I woke up at 12:30 and went to go check on her, and although we hadn't heard anything, she has crawled out of bed and been sleeping on the floor for a while. (She was still in bed when we went to sleep, which wasn't too much after her.) I put her back in the bed, and it appears that she slept the rest of the night with her head on her pillow (kind of) and actually in bed. We got her up at 6:30.

Overall, I think I'm pretty impressed. At least for the first night. We'll see how naps and the other nights go. :)